chapter01 · 001-ep1

Episode 1: The Bottom-Tier Ojou-sama Streamer

"Haah... Just like always—my subscriber count goes without saying, but even my concurrent viewers refuse to grow, desu wa..."

The murmur belonged to a dungeon streamer—Karin Yamada—and it echoed through the dungeon's gloom.

Grumbling like this in the middle of a broadcast is, frankly, not very proper.

But there was no problem. Because right now, the number of people watching this live stream was zero.

Otherwise known as the state they call zero concurrent viewers.

"At this rate, I shall never reach that person I admired so, no matter how much time passes..."

At the merciless 0 in the concurrent-viewers count on her smartphone, out slipped a sigh—she'd long since lost count of how many.

Dungeons—those products of fantasy—had appeared suddenly across the world decades ago.

Quite a bit of chaos broke out back then, apparently, but that turmoil was now a thing of the past.

Nowadays, with legislation and the like having moved forward, dungeon explorer is a perfectly respectable profession, and "dungeon streaming"—which takes that thrilling world as its material—has become one of the most popular genres in all of streaming.

"Dungeon streaming," where people do occasionally die, sometimes becomes a target of criticism.

But the genre has never been regulated; if anything, it comes recommended by the state.

The number of explorers—who acquire mysterious powers by delving into dungeons—and the output of dungeon materials tie directly into national strength. To a government that wants to grow its pool of explorers, anything that fans the public's longing for the dungeons is more than welcome, whatever it may be.

That policy has been the same since long before streamers as a species ever existed—to the point that the state itself spearheaded any number of explorer-themed creative works. And naturally, government push or not, the sudden appearance of dungeons attracted creators in droves all on its own.

Amid all that, as masterpiece after masterpiece kept on being born—the thing that hooked Karin Yamada was a certain anime.

What set her heart ablaze, above all, was an ojou-sama character who mowed down monsters gracefully and adorably. She was the figure of adoration who'd given Karin—lonely and half-starved through her elementary school days—the push she needed to face forward.

(I want to become like that, too.)

Thinking it, with all her heart, Karin began by imitating the character's speech and dress.

And to draw herself closer to the ojou-sama she longed for, she poured her all into dungeon runs that staked her very life.

Then one day, Karin learned of the existence of "dungeon streamers."

Beings who conquered dungeons through the screen and gave their viewers cheer—the closest thing in this world to the characters she had admired that day.

"This is it, desu wa!"

Her true calling, she thought.

And so Karin consulted a friend, put together her equipment with what meager allowance she had, and made her streamer debut then and there.

But a full year had already passed since she opened her channel.

Reality had not gone as smoothly as it does in manga and anime.

Talent as an explorer? Honestly, she thinks she has it. After all, Karin is presently pushing through the region known as the lower layers, solo. A high schooler—and a mere sixteen years old at that—who can manage this much is all but unheard of.

And yet, in perfect inverse proportion to that talent, her streaming simply would not grow.

Three channel subscribers. An average concurrent viewership of a spectacular zero. The bottom of the bottom among bottom-tier, flash-in-the-pan streamers.

The concept of Karin's channel: "Elegant Dungeon Conquest."

The policy: conquer dungeons beautifully, elegantly—just like the character she admired that day.

Which means that even on a lower-layer run, hits taken: zero. Without letting a single monster's attack so much as graze hair or clothes, she advances through the dungeon 'Elegantly.' If she does say so herself, Karin thinks she's doing something reasonably remarkable.

And yet, if there is any reason her channel refuses to grow at all—

"—! A viewer, desu wa!"

Karin's eyes flew wide. The 0 she'd been glaring holes into had changed to a 1.

"I-I-I am Karin Yamada, sixteen years of age! At this very moment, I am in the middle of an Elegant solo conquest of the lower layers, desu wa!"

This viewer, she would turn into a regular—without fail.

Even mid-introduction, Karin swung her fists with everything she had.

She dodged every last attack from the oncoming monsters flawlessly, and beat them to death, each and every one, 'Elegantly.'

And then—

"—! A comment, desu wa!"

The comment section, showing its first movement of the day.

I-I have to hit them back with something entertaining! Karin fired up all the harder. But—

【Oh great, another fake "live stream" video】

"Eh?"

【It reacts to comments... so it's the type where they just mess with the background】

【If you're gonna scam people, at least do it right. Like, switch from rare-item floating-cam POV to body-cam POV】

【Wasted my time again】

"N-no, you're wrong, I protest!"

Karin cried out at the comments as they rolled in, thick with disdain.

"Viewers who wander in now and then do suspect it, often enough, but this video is genuine! Why, even my camera was a secondhand one I simply happened to win in a sweepstakes—ah..."

Her words broke off halfway.

Concurrent viewers: zero. Nothing she said would ever reach anyone again.

"A-aahhh~..."

With a pathetic little sound, Karin sank down into a crouch right where she stood.

Fake videos.

Comments of that sort had come in any number of times before.

With advances in AI technology and whatnot, high-fidelity fake videos have gotten easy to make these days.

By now—whether it's to farm view counts or to run dungeon streamers out of the business—it's nothing strange for some scoundrel to pass that kind of fake video off as a live broadcast.

Of course, if you actually watch, even an amateur can sniff out a staged video fairly quickly... but there just aren't many people devoted enough to vet every single one of the countless fake videos out there.

"All the more so on a dead stream like this one... or could it be—"

Karin looked down at the frilly dress draped over her own body.

"Could it be that this outfit is the problem after all...?"

An elegant dress, modeled after the character of her dreams.

But precisely because that 'Elegant' attire was so ill-suited to dungeon conquest, there were signs that Karin's live streams were all too easily taken for gag-driven fake videos.

To avoid getting doxxed, as it's called, she wears different clothes in the comparatively crowded upper and middle layers—and the fact that this dress has never been seen except through a screen is likely another factor feeding the suspicions of fakery.

In which case, to grow her viewership, perhaps she ought to reconsider this Elegant concept, just once—

"N-no, no, no! That would defeat the entire point, I protest!"

The streamer she wants to become is not some ordinary popular streamer—it is a streamer who can lift everyone's spirits with elegant battles, just like the character she admired that day.

Lose sight of that, and there would be no meaning in having set out to become a dungeon streamer at all.

Naturally, she intends to fine-tune things as circumstances demand and run her channel mindful of what her viewers want—but the 'Elegant Ojou-sama' is the very core of Karin Yamada. The dress, her most unmistakable symbol, is not something she can allow herself to take off.

Besides, there really are dungeon streamers out there who've grown their channels with cosplay gear. She could be more conscious of putting on a spectacle of a run, polish up her banter... surely there were still improvements left to make.

It was still too early to give in to despair and neglect the very root of who she was.

"...That said, it has already been a year since I began streaming. Here I am, after all that trial and error, I'm afraid..."

Self-deprecating all the while, Karin let out a long, long sigh.

"Haah... Perhaps I truly am not cut out for this..."

She has no intention of giving up on her dream just yet.

But with results this nonexistent, weak little words like those slip out before she notices.

"Well then, I shall consider what to do from here later on; for the time being, that will be all for today. I am getting hungry, after all... And so, everyone—Otsukarin desu wa~... haah, just whom am I even saying goodbye to?"

Head crumpling forward, staring dully down at the 0-concurrents display, she let slip a lifeless sign-off (a soliloquy). How lifeless, you ask? Lifeless enough that her handling of the camera and smartphone she tucked away—"'Did the stream cut off properly?' 'Oh well. If nobody's watching, it's all the same anyway'"—was sloppy to match.

Well, there had been any number of times she sulked over zero concurrents and got careless with her controls, but the stream had always cut out properly, so it'll be fine, she figured—bashing in the heads of approaching monsters by way of stress relief as she set out for home.

And then it happened, just as Karin reached an area not far from the middle layers.

"Aight, lightin' 'er up here and now. All you antis runnin' your mouths like 'no way he's got the guts for that'—just you watch~"

That was when it reached her, from beyond the dungeon's gloom: a voice you could just picture wearing a smug, snickering grin.